It’s been already over a year since Python 3.0 was released (December 3rd 2008 to be excact), so it’s about time you took a look this evolution.

Plenty of books and websites, but here are my favourite sources for evolving to Python 3:

• Dive Into Python 3: http://diveintopython3.org/
• The official Python 3 documentation: http://docs.python.org/py3k/

The first chapter can be downloaded for free and gives an excellent introduction to this powerful new programming approach.

The vSphere SDK for Perl provides an easy-to-use Perl scripting interface to the vSphere API. Administrators and developers can work with vSphere API objects using vSphere SDK for Perl subroutines. Administrators can use the utility applications included with vSphere SDK for Perl. In addition, the vSphere SDK for Perl includes the Web Services for Management component for writing scripts that retrieve CIM data from the ESX/ESXi host using CIMOM, a service that provides standard CIM management functions. The vSphere SDK for Perl also includes subroutines for managing the VMware Credential Store and an example application that illustrates credential store use.

http://www.vmware.com/support/developer/viperltoolkit/

The how and why of this already famous switch can be read at length on the Ubuntu Forums. I’d recommend giving the new layout a try, especially with the new exciting work being done with the Ayatana indicators.

If you don’t like the new layout, switching back is quite easy.
Start the Run application dialog by hitting ALT+F2 and enter the gconf-editor command to start the Gnome Configuration Editor

Then browse to /apps/metacity/general and double click the button_layout key to change the value. The colon “:” will determine where the buttons go. Put it on the right and the buttons will be on the left, put it to the left of the buttons and they will be on the right hand side of your windows. You can even put the colon between two buttons to have this effect:

As usual, you can download this spanking new release from the Ubuntu mirrors or follow these instructions to apt-get upgrade your way into this exciting new release!

-- michael@winston 10-Apr-10 18:15
-- ~:$ ssh-keygen -y > ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub

This will read your private key and recreate the public key.
More useful gems in the ssh-keygen man page (like changing your passphrase, etc).

Defining a model that maps to a database table is fairly straightforward. Simply subclass the SXModel class (or work on an instance) and map the properties of the model to the fields of the database.

class Person extends SXModel {
	public function __construct() {
		parent::__construct("id", "persons");
		$this->map('firstname', 'first_name', new SXString());
		$this->map('lastname', 'last_name', new SXString());
	}
}

In the example above we create a model Person that is linked tot the persons table. The constructor of SXModel takes the name of the id field and the table name as arguments. We then map the model property firstname to the table field first_name and specify that it is of SXString type.

Later versions of the Sinax-Framework ORM will make it possible to pass options to your properties, such as required, maximum length, etc.

$p = new Person();
print "Getting person object with ID 1: \n";
$p->getById(1);
print " ID: $p->id\n";
print " Firstname: $p->firstname\n";
print " Lastname: $p->lastname\n";

The sample above creates a new Person instance and retries the Person object with ID 1. The file persons.sql in the source tree has some sample data and corresponding table structure to work with.

Using the SXModel method isValid() you can check if the model is valid and can be saved to the database.

Future of Sinax-Framework ORM

There is of course plenty of work to be done on this ORM implementation. Below is a list of features that I am already working on, feel free to contribute extra ideas.

• Relationships between models
• Extra datatypes with more options

Below is a sample that you can also find in the Sinax-Framework source tree. It creates a simple form containing three fields, two regular SXTextField and one SXEmailField.

The first SXTextField and the SXEmailField are required, the second SXTextField isn’t. The method $form->isValid() will check whether all fields in the form are valid. After the form is valid the submitted values are simply echoed to the user.

This short sample demonstrates how easy it is to use the forms component of the Sinax-Framework and amount of work it takes from your hands.

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34

require('sx/forms.inc.php');
 
class MyForm extends SXForm {
	public function __construct() {
		parent::__construct('Verzenden', '');
		$this->addField(new SXTextField('Firstname', 'first_name', true));
		$this->addField(new SXTextField('Lastname', 'last_name', false));
		$this->addField(new SXEmailField('Email', 'email', true, "sample@sinax.be"));
	}
}
 
$form = new MyForm();
 
echo '<h1>SXForm sample: form1.php</h1>';
echo '<p>Required fields: Firstname and email</p>';
 
// Check for POST method
if ($_SERVER['REQUEST_METHOD'] === 'POST') {
	// Load post data into the form
	$form->load();
 
	if ($form->isValid()) {
		// Get object from form
		$o = $form->getObject();
		echo 'I got these values: <br />';
		echo 'Firstname: ' . $o->first_name . "<br />";
		echo 'Lastname: ' . $o->last_name . "<br />";
		echo 'Email: ' . $o->email . "<br />";
		$form->clear();
	} else {
		echo "There are errors in your submission! Please correct them!";
	}
}
$form->display();